Designed by Yurko Gutsulvak in Kviv, Ukraine, the packaging for Ridna Mapka fruit juice line is noteworthy for its commanding retail shelf presence. The juice cartons have identical images front and back, with informational text printed on the flap ends. The wraparound graphics project a highly visible diamond-shape pattern when displayed side-by-side on store shelves.

For the packaging design, Gutsulvak aimed to suggest a nostalgic tone for Ridna Mapka (meaning “native brand”) to appeal to consumers who yearn for the authentic natural flavors of yesteryears. Featuring illustrations by Oleksij Volkov, the Ridna Mapka packaging evokes the style and feel of Russian design in the 1960s and 1970s. The retro look harkens to a time when fruit juices had the unadulterated taste of real fruit.Read More »

Everything about this commercial for Adobe Marketing Cloud rings true, except for rerouting the spaceship to another part of the galaxy. Created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners for Adobe, this “Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing” ad campaign gives us an extreme look at what can happen when companies move warp speed ahead on their brand strategy before or while collecting, analyzing and understanding marketing data. Invariably reticent managers afraid to express their doubts about the chosen direction, do so at the very last minute when it dawns on them that they would be blamed for letting it go forward. Re-dos cause delays. Delays burn budgets, sometime to a crisp. One reason this TV spot is hilariously funny to so many in the marketing/design business is because it is painfully familiar. Such “war stories,” usually confessed in an inebriated state, abound. At some point, we’ve all been there. Gotta laugh so you don’t cry.

This is terrible news. Dos Equis is sending the “most interesting man in the world” on a one-way trip to Mars. On March 6, 2016, Dos Equis’s Amsterdam-based owner Heineken announced it was retiring the character played by actor Jonathan Goldsmith in favor of someone more appealing to millennials. This is in spite of the fact that Dos Equis beer sales have nearly tripled since the campaign was introduced in 2009. As portrayed by Goldsmith, the Dos Equis man is a blend of Ernest Hemingway, James Bond and Errol Flynn. He is dashing, nonchalantly fearless, at home in any situation and in any part of the world, charismatic, and open to adventures. The Dos Equis man ads, first created by EuroRSCG New York, elevated the lager from a regional brew, mostly known in Texas and California, to one of the world’s best-known brands. And it gave us one of the most memorable taglines: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friend.”

Warning to Dos Equis: The next “most interesting man in the world” better not be some hip hop dude with tattoos up the ying yang, earrings, and ever-present cell phone, or a Justin Bieber type. If he is, some older fans will be throwing beer cans at their TV. Some of us are still thirsty for the current “most interesting man in the world.”

The making of “Loving Vincent” is truly an act of love. Everything from its Kickstarter crowdfunding to eschewing CGI in favor of painstakingly painting every frame by hand makes this 80-minute film a monumental homage to the life of Vincent Van Gogh and to fine artists everywhere. Polish painter Dorota Kobriela and Oscar-winning British filmmaker Hugh Welchman of Breakthru Films began work on the world’s first feature-length painted animation in 2011, and with an infusion of Kickstarter funding are pushing forward to bring their labor of love to fruition. In an interview with Voice of America, Kobriela says they were inspired to undertake this project after reading Van Gogh’s letter to his brother saying that “we can only speak through our paintings.”

“Loving Vincent” integrates 120 of Van Gogh’s greatest paintings into a storyline pulled together from some 800 letters written by the artist in the latter years of his life. The film’s plot unfolds through “interviews” with characters closest to Van Gogh and through a dramatic reconstruction of events leading up to his sudden and still mysterious death.

Those familiar with San Francisco’s landscape will recognize the iconic landmarks depicted on Fort Point Beer packaging. Those who aren’t will simply appreciate the packaging for its lovely minimalist design and smart, consistent execution. Designed by San Francisco-based Manual, the packaging is illustrated with geometric-line drawings of the undergirding of the Golden Gate Bridge, the rooftops of old Army barracks, the windmill in Golden Gate Park, the Ferry Building clock, the Alcatraz guard tower, and other well-known sites. Like scaffolding, the graphics form an arched frame around the Fort Point brand name, setting it apart.

San Francisco’s fastest-growing craft beer brand, Fort Point Brewery is located in San Francisco’s historic Presidio, now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Presidio was originally built as a military outpost in 1776 when California was owned by Spain. It was subsequently occupied by the U.S. Army between 1846 and 1994.

The Fort Point Brewery, founded in 2014 by brothers Tyler and Justin Catalana, resides in an old Army motor pool building near Fort Point, which stands at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Fort was constructed at the entrance to San Francisco Bay just before the Civil War, circa 1854, to keep the California gold fields from falling into rebel hands — just a few historical factoids to reflect on while enjoying a can of Fort Point beer.

The newest edition of Kit Hinrichs’ and my “Obsessions” book series is on the arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans held in U.S. concentration camps during World War II. All That Remains is a sequel to my 2005 book titled The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942–1946. While working on that book, I spent many hours reflecting on why people banished by their own country to barrack encampments fenced in by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers with rifles pointed at them would take up art with such a fervor that it became an obsession to them. They scrounged for scraps of paper, bits of lumber, empty bottles and cans, and cardboard packaging to use for their art projects and scoured the desert terrain for stones, driftwood and shrubs to carve into new forms. Art served a need far beyond the aesthetic. Although two-thirds of the 120,000 ethnic Japanese forced into camps were American citizens, the older immigrant generation especially, who were in their 50s and 60s, embraced the creation of art as a lifeline. Given less than 10 days notice to turn themselves in and told they could only bring what they could carry. the adults knew their businesses, homes and all their possessions would probably be gone when they were freed to return to the West Coast. In fact, that turned out to be true.

Even successful graphic designers like Ken Carbone of Carbone Smolan Agency in New York City aren’t at liberty to do whatever they please on an assignment. Corporate clients dictate marketing objectives, brand parameters, visual subject matter, point-of-view, deadlines, budget, and a myriad other criteria. Ultimately, the client has to sign off on what you create, and the verdict on how wonderful your work is hinges on ROI, market results, elevated brand visibility, etc.

It’s not unusual to hear of designers who wrap up a long, hard day at the studio by creating for their own personal satisfaction. Designer/illustrator Jessica Hische assigned herself the task of drawing a Drop Cap a day and posting it online. Pentagram partner Paula Scher has devoted her off-hours to painting intricate maps of the world as she sees it. Ken Carbone has just concluded 365 days of creating one apple art piece every single day. Curious to know why, we sent him a list of questions. Here are his answers.

Palmitas, about an hour-and half drive from Mexico City, was like so many other poor, nondescript Mexican villages. The community of about 2,000 residents had suffered its share of youth violence and low employment when the Mexican government decided to spruce things up a bit by hiring local artists to paint the entire town in a rainbow of colorful murals. The village brought in a group of prominent graffiti artists called “Germen Crew,” and put them to work with buckets of paint and brushes. The crew repainted 209 houses covering a 20,000 square meter area. The macro mural project took five months to paint, and when it was done, Palmitas stood out for miles around. The cheerful colors had a positive effect on the community, helping to reduce youth violence, create jobs, and turn the hillside village into a scenic attraction.Read More »

Commercials run on the Super Bowl have become their own cultural phenomenon. Costing about $5 million to air a 30-second spot (or $166,666 per second), the commercials reach an estimated 115 million American viewers, and millions more outside of the U.S. Advertisers throw big budgets and top talent at making these spots. In past years, the entertainment quality has been so high that some viewers only watch the game to see the commercials. After the game, people turn to YouTube to see the commercials they missed. This year, however, many advertisers aimed for a pre-game viral buzz by releasing their commercials in advance on TV, YouTube and online platforms.The commercials kinda dribbled out over the past month. The buzz created by millions of people seeing the ads simultaneously for the first time on the Super Bowl was missing. The Super Bowl ads were no longer an event. Without a doubt, there were some terrific ads on the Super Bowl (like the ones shown here), but the thrill of the shared experience is gone. People aren’t coming into the office the next day and chatting with co-workers about their favorite Super Bowl commercial the way they used to.Read More »

Confession: Even as a pre-teen, I resented Barbie. She was too blonde, too shapely, too well-dressed, too popular with the right boys (Ken), too comfortable and self-assured in any setting. She rode around in a red convertible, while the rest of us had to slump down in the back seat of the family station wagon. Her boobs were perky enough to look good in an evening gown and swimsuit. Never in our wildest dreams did most young girls feel we could grow up to be like her. She wasn’t a role model; she was an in-your-face taunt. It’s one thing to aspire to an ideal and another to reach for the unrealistic and impossible. It’s an instant inferiority complex at age 10. In retrospect, I realize that Barbie was very shallow, self-absorbed, and not likable at all. She probably was the type who would never read a book or have an opinion on anything other than the latest fashion.

So, I suppose it is a good thing that Mattel has issued updated Barbie dolls in different body types – tall, petite, and curvy. This is a follow-on to last year’s introduction of 23 new Barbies, with different skin tones, hairstyles, outfits and flat feet (not meant for high heels only). It’s a start. Now to accessorize her with books and turn her into a team player.Read More »

A few days ago Meta Design/Font Shop founder Erik Spiekermann expressed his displeasure in a tweet: “Cannot stand that Trump uses my #FFMeta @ FontShop: (only in the background, but still) he only deserves Arial.”
That led Roger Black to tweet: “Trump does not deserve Arial.” Others chimed in that wingdings and dingbats were more appropriate for The Donald. From the incensed outcry of type lovers, one would think that Spiekermann had been violated or defamed by Trump. Type-loving tweeters had very specific views on what kind of personality deserved to use a humanistic sans-serif font that conveyed a calm, reasonable presence, and it wasn’t the bombastic candidate. For the sake of truth-in-typography, we suggest a more suitable option for Trump – Comic Sans.

Over the past four decades, New York-based designer Louise Fili has returned often to Paris, camera in hand, to document the signage of the Parisian streetscape. Graphique de La Rue is what Fili calls her “typographic love letter to Paris.” From the classic neon that illuminates bistros and cafes to the dramatic facades of the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergere to Hector Guimard’s legendary art nouveau metro entrances, Fili shows us the sensuous elegance and dazzling beauty of Paris street signs. This book is a sequel to her Graficadella Strada: The Signs of Italy, which is equally sumptuous.Read More »

Anyone driving on a dark winter’s night knows that pedestrians and cyclists are difficult to see, especially if they are wearing dark colors. That is why Swedish car maker Volvo has introduced an innovative new safety feature that isn’t part of their vehicles, but is on the cyclists and pedestrians who may cross their path. Developed by creative agency Grey London and Swedish startup Albedo100, LifePaint is a water-based spray-on reflective paint that is invisible in daylight but lights up at night when encountering the glare of automobile headlights. LifePaint can be sprayed on any surface – bikes, helmets, clothes, baby strollers, pet leashes, shoes, wheelchairs, backpacks – without affecting the material or color. Completely transparent by day, it only glows when a headlight shines on it. It wears off in about a week, and washes out completely. To promote its new Volvo cx90, the car maker is giving away free LifePaint samples in bike shops in the UK before rolling the product out to a broader market.Read More »

This 90-second plug for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is as ingenious as it is entertaining. Featuring Fallon, house-band The Roots, and the Star Wars cast, the video shows the performers singing as an a cappella choir. Arranged in a grid a la Hollywood Squares or the Brady Bunch, each performer is shot against a plain background while giving their own solo rendition of the film’s most familiar tunes. By shooting at different times and places to accommodate the performers’ schedules, the producers were able to make Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, BB8, storm troopers, 3CPO, and R2D2, part of the all-star chorus. The juxtaposition of colored squares and overlapping of a capella voices turned the video into a spontaneous jam session, with performers playing off each other even though they were in different parts of the galaxy.

The rice-growing region in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture is renowned for its excellent sake (made from fermented rice) and its colorful ornamental carp fish, called Nishikigoi, or koi for short. Tokyo-based design agency, Bullet, was inspired by this regional icon when developing the packaging for a recently released sake product produced by Imayotsukasa Sake Brewery, based in Niigata. The sake brand named Nishikigoi features the distinctive bright red and white mottled patterns of the carp on its bottle and a white box cut-out in the simple silhouette of a carp. Stunning and stylish, the packaging displayed together in a retail setting look like a school of swimming Nishikigoi fish.

The ornamental carp originated in Niigata around AD 1500 when rice farmers began using the common carp as fish food, raising them in the reservoirs above the rice paddies. Around 1800, farmers began seeing colorful mutations of the fish and cross-bred them to create and stabilize new strains in vibrant colors and patterns. The ornamental carp were largely unknown outside of Niigata until they were sent to the 1914 Tokyo Taisho Exhibition as a unique product of the prefecture. By 1938, they were being exported as decorative objects to other parts of the world. Today they are prized as their own unique living art form gracing the ponds of many home gardens — and on the bottles of premium sake.Read More »

SKYY, the American-made vodka, is transforming cities across the country into a knitted wonderland by taking everyone’s favorite ugly holiday sweater and wrapping it around everything from city buses in San Francisco, to bus shelters in Boston and downtown Chicago, to art installations in Manhattan’s Union Square and the Meatpacking District. Available for a limited time during the holiday season, SKYY’s iconic cobalt blue bottles are actually wrapped in blue and white Fair Isle knit sweaters. “Ugly sweaters have become a big pop culture trend, with people theming entire parties around them, and vodka is the number one spirit consumed during the holidays. It was a natural fit to combine the two, ” explains Umberto Luchini, Vice President of Marketing at Campari America.